• Clifford C Sheckter, Christopher Pham, Danielle Rochlin, Zeshaan N Maan, Yvonne Karanas, and Catherine Curtin.
• Division of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Stanford University, United States. Electronic address: Sheckter@stanford.edu.
• Burns. 2020 Feb 1; 46 (1): 44-51.

IntroductionClinical volume has been associated with rate of complications and mortality for various conditions and procedures. We aim to analyze the relationship between annual hospital burn admission, patient safety indicators (PSI), line infections, and inpatient mortality. We hypothesize that high facility volume will correlate with better outcomes.MethodsAll burn admissions with complete data for total body surface area (TBSA) and depth were extracted from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 2002-2011. Predictor variables included age, gender, comorbidities, %TBSA, burn depth, and inhalation injury. Surgically relevant PSIs were drawn from the Healthcare Cost & Utilization Project and included: sepsis, venous thromboembolic disease, hemorrhage, pneumonia, and wound complications. Outcomes were analyzed with regression models.ResultsOf the 57,468 encounters included, 3.1% died, 6.3% experienced >1 PSI event, and 0.3% experienced a catheter-associated urinary tract infections or central line associated blood stream infections. The most frequent PSI was pneumonia followed by sepsis and VTE. Annual hospital burn admission volume was independently associated with decreased odds of mortality (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.99-0.99, p < 0.001) and PSIs (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.99-0.99, p = 0.031). There was no significant correlation with line infections. In both mortality and PSI models, age, %TBSA, inhalation injuries, and Elixhauser comorbidity score were significantly associated with adverse outcomes (p < 0.05).ConclusionThere was a significant association between higher hospital volume and decreased likelihood of patient safety indicators and mortality. There was no observed relationship with line infections. These findings could inform future verification policies of US burn centers.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.

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